South Sudan's President Salva Kiir addresses the nation at
the South Sudan National Parliament in Juba, November 18.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir
has re-appointed his rival Riek Machar as vice president, a decree said on
Thursday, the culmination of a deal to try to end months of civil war in the
world's newest nation.
The
announcement returned the presidency to where it was soon before fighting
erupted between supporters of the two men in December 2013 - a conflict that
went on to kill thousands of people and force more than two million to flee.
Both
sides, under pressure from Washington, the United Nations and other powers,
signed an initial pact in August, and agreed to share out ministerial positions
in January.
But that accord has repeatedly
broken down and a U.N. report last month said both leaders qualified for
sanctions over atrocities in the conflict.
The decree
read out on state TV said Machar would be first vice president, his position
before he was sacked in 2013, the move that eventually triggered the violence.
There was no immediate announcement from Machar.
Oil-producing
South Sudan split away from Sudan in 2011 amid mass celebrations and promises
of aid and good will from most of the developed world.
But its
regional and Western backers were dismayed when fighting erupted, often along
ethnic lines.
Last
month's confidential report by a U.N. panel that monitors the conflict in South
Sudan for the Security Council stated that Kiir and Machar were still
completely in charge of their forces and were therefore directly to blame for
killing civilians and other actions that warrant sanctions.
According
to the report, those violations include extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual
violence, extrajudicial arrest and detention, abductions, forced displacement,
the use and recruitment of children, beatings, looting and the destruction of
livelihoods and homes.
The report
described how Kiir's government bought at least four Mi-24 attack helicopters
in 2014 from a private Ukrainian company at a cost of nearly $43 million.
It added
that Machar's forces were trying to "acquire shoulder-fired anti-aircraft
missiles to counter the threat of attack helicopters, specifically citing the
need to continue and indeed escalate the fighting."